The Brooklyn Rail

After premiering A Year without Summer, Florentina Holzinger’s trajectory is as assured as her seven-syllable name, echoing the alliteration and assonance of the equally divisive Pier Paolo Pasolini.

At the entrance to the Vienna Volkstheater were signs warning attendees that the show would include blood and bodily fluids, self-harming acts, explicit sexual content, strobe lights, loud music, and could not be recommended for minors. Fresh with the aromatic memories of fermenting entrails at Hermann Nitsch’s The Orgies Mysteries Theatre the week before, I am reminded that we are in Vienna, the birthplace of Actionism.

A Holzinger production can be traced back to theater’s ritualistic origins while radically reshaping its future. Organized and co-produced by Tanzquartier Wien, A Year without Summer reframes and dredges everything from history to shock rock, while surveying the wastelands of our collective psyche. Holzinger’s art leans in on the Dionysian while achieving an Apollonian feat through its grand and structured scope.

Without Summer is an amalgamation of references ranging from Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde to Sigmund Freud’s cocaine, incorporating themes of aeronautic eroticism, nudity, sex toys, plastic surgery, hook suspension, body modification, and adrenaline-fueled, extreme stunts that alternate with pseudoscientific set pieces. The instances of medical, psychiatric, and institutionalized femicide are so grim that it takes Freud’s conquest of “the lair of vagina dentata” to provide a moment of tragicomic relief.

Announcing “It’s a musical!”, the cast sings a medley of original compositions, mixed with Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, and a haunting 1960s pop ballad, “The End of the World.” In the more frenzied sections, snippets of live metal guitar are shredded with astonishing skill at ear-splitting volume. Holzinger’s all-female cast presents a trinity of historical villains each wearing lab coats without pants. Annina Machaz is Freud; Dr. Josef Mengele is wickedly embodied by Saioa Alvarez Ruiz; and Georges Cuvier, the eighteenth-century French scientist whose craniometry studies supported racist ideologies, is played by Achan Malonda.

“NO END” is written across the monitors, which throughout the show serve to accentuate the action like a Greek chorus. On the roof of the meters-high clinical specimen cage where we have seen robotic dogs herding the elderly, one performer is figure skating on a thermal rink of no more than thirty square meters

It is encouraging that the final act celebrates the resilient warmth of an embrace, the beauty of ballet on skates; a scene without simulated sex but authentic coupling, fully cleansed of shit. On a frozen stage, they simply embrace in twos and threes, naked in a blizzard. Holzinger, the great mischievous maestro of chaos, has openly shared radical empathy, the theater a vessel from which she elevates the ridiculous while scratching at the sublime.

Florentina Holzinger (b. 1986, Vienna, Austria) studied choreography at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. Her first opera, Sancta featured naked, roller-skating nuns, live sex scenes, and real blood, drawing criticism from religious groups—especially in Stuttgart, where eighteen audience members needed medical attention due to severe nausea.

She will represent Austria at the 61st Art Biennale in 2026. At a press conference for the project, tentatively titled Seaworld Venice, Holzinger noted the rise of the Far Right in Austria, stating, “As an artist, I have always been observing the political climate and its potential consequences for pushback against my work. For me, it’s important to represent Austria in Venice with a radical and feminist position in such a context.”

Steven Pollock met with Holzinger at the historic Café Sperl in Vienna, where their conversation ranged from the planning of her piece Seaworld, the historical horrors of the “Hottentot Venus,” Hermann Nitsch’s Catholic funeral, to Holzinger’s use of mass hypnosis while dramatizing Dante’s Inferno.

Steven Pollock: Did you attend Hermann Nitsch’s Six Day Play The Orgies of Mysteries at Prinzendorf Castle?

Florentina Holzinger: No. I wanted to. But I visited during the setup, because we have been invited to create an event on the castle grounds next year. Did you go?

Pollock: Yes, for one day only, which was partially rained out. Years ago in New York, I participated as a member of the orchestra. Strangely, this time, I wandered into a room on the side of the castle, where everyone was watching a video of his funeral, which was surprisingly Catholic. I would have thought Nitsch would have wanted a ritualistic pagan rite, as he is buried on the castle grounds—a site of so many performances.

Holzinger: That also surprises me. We are excited to perform there, as it is a supercharged place. Rita Nitsch said, “Use anything you like at Schloss Prinzendorf.” There are so many tempting things on the grounds: the bells, the wooden crosses, and relics everywhere. Our event will coincide with Pentecost in 2026—exactly one year from his final Six Day Play.

Pollock: According to our current cultural values, his work remains partially taboo—involving animal blood, and the slaughtering for the feast—yet there is quite an artist’s tradition for using cadavers, and the castle’s environs are all farms. Artists hired grave robbers, and Théodore Géricault’s studio roof was littered with body parts. You once tried to arrange for a corpse on stage for a performance—did that happen?

Holzinger: I wanted to, but no, it never happened. I am very close to it though.

Pollock: A Year without Summer is a magnificent, epic piece of theater, an entertaining Trojan horse delivering a grave message. Yet, according to the press, it was calm in comparison to some of your other pieces.

Holzinger: It’s weird how they have written about it, with content like, “Holzinger has produced a grown-up show and finally mellowed.” To me, it’s all the same. It is on the minimal side in comparison to my other work, but this was circumstantial due to the pace at which we found ourselves working.

I only make a work for the stage every two years, whereas this was an exception created around accelerated circumstances, and right on the back of Sancta, a large-scale opera which came with its own set of challenges. I had committed to doing it, and for me and my team—we questioned ourselves if it was too soon after the opera, resulting in a show with a broader dynamic than usual. For example, never in my shows have we ever followed one singular narrative for thirty minutes without interruption. This piece gently unfolds at a pace we wouldn’t normally choose.

Pollock: I wondered about that, as it progressed from this sort of primordial, misty origin story, to a seemingly awkward narration delivered by a side character. We watch as the performers mingle, first softly, then sensually, as Strauss’s 2001 Also sprach Zarathustra syncs to an actual orgy—which is interrupted by ear-splitting, live heavy metal. This sets the stage for the cutting into your thigh for the “birth.” Was that first scene intentionally slow to play with the audience’s expectations?

Holzinger: I would say that it was not super-intentional, but we were aware that this was not what people were expecting for the premiere. I thought the audience might be wondering where this is going.

Pollock: It was effective.

Holzinger: We embraced it, even while questioning how it would work out, because it’s not a dynamic I am used to.

Pollock: I found the narrator’s exposition surprisingly low-key, especially considering it revolves around Mary Shelley inventing science-fiction by writing Frankenstein in 1816, and the ecological fallout (snowstorms in July, dark skies, crop failures, civil unrest) due to the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the year before.

Holzinger: Honestly, I would not have directed the narrator exactly how to speak. I don’t care about dramatic technique. I bring people into the project who I know come with a certain set of skills, maybe at the expense of others.

Pollock: She asked the audience, “What would you do if you knew today was the end of the world?”

The mood shifted dramatically through several turning points: an orgy, a birth, a musical, and a scathing satire of men in science and medicine. It explored the quest for immortality through plastic surgery, leading to a beauty laboratory of zombies who ultimately find themselves in a nursing home purgatory of decay, and a literal shitstorm. That’s a lot, especially when you could have just done a musical.

Holzinger: With Sancta, it was the same: we had a one-act opera, which was that length because I cannot listen to opera longer than half-an-hour. I do have a big passion for the musical world, but fifteen minutes of singing is enough for me.

Pollock: Can we focus on the birth of the miniature, cyber-looking, silver fetus, literally cut out of your thigh while you screamed in pain?

Holzinger: The birth comes out of what we call the “Orgy,” the reproductive activity that we deemed necessary preceding the birth and creation of the musical.

Pollock: According to what can be seen on the monitors, it looked necessary to reopen and close the wound every performance. Is the piece actually inside the wound, or is that an illusion?

Holzinger: The piece is inside, then the “doctor” cuts it out live on stage. After the show, it's stitched up only to be repeated for the next show.

Pollock: You have an interesting relationship to pain.

Holzinger: For the sake of transparency, I don’t do everything without anesthesia. Of course, we play a lot with live acts, but we also incorporate simulations: navigating between the fake and the real is part of the stagecraft that I love. It wouldn’t be interesting to me if segments like the birth were completely fake. This is a reference to the iconic thigh-birth of Dionysus from Zeus, and I feel very good about performing it. Birth is an unbelievable phenomenon, universally experienced—including levels of pain and endurance that every mother is expected to endure—but rarely acknowledged.

As a trained dancer, the notion of pain on stage is relative. Spending thirty minutes en pointe shoes is equally painful, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it or use these physical techniques for a show.

In the early days, I performed a show in Norway with improper rigging that pulled from the ceiling. I fell face-first from seven meters and woke up in the hospital. I felt worse for the audience, who were certain I had died on stage.

Pollock: Jumping to another medical section: Achan Malonda, who possesses a beautiful voice, portrays the historical figure Georges Cuvier. The scene is rooted in the tragic story of Saartjie Baartman, a South African of the Khoekhoe people who was brought to Europe as a human specimen, derogatorily referred to as the “Hottentot Venus.” Cuvier and others obsessively studied her anatomy, viewing her as a racial anomaly, and subjected her to mistreatment until her death at age twenty-six, from an illness that was likely the result of sexual abuse and dehumanizing conditions. Her genitalia and dissected remains were preserved in jars and displayed in a Parisian museum until 1974.

Holzinger: The role of women in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “The Rights of Man” and Enlightenment thought is no better than that scripted by the Nazis.

The shows deal with dark topics but there is always an optimistic outlook. I do deliberately try to offer a utopia against a certain regressive order and suffering.

Pollock: It was an emotional experience to watch, especially the ending: a descent into despair as characters are confronted with ecological destruction, and subjected to society’s failures regarding aging and death. Ultimately, no one has control, and everyone ends up covered in shit. As snow begins to fall, the finale suggests another ice age. Amidst the chaos, the characters bond and embrace one another in shared warmth, concluding with radical empathy.

Holzinger: Many describe this as the most tender show, and tenderness is a crucial aspect of all our work. Especially when inflicting pain on oneself or others, tenderness is essential; otherwise, it risks becoming mere self-mutilation.

That’s not our goal. A robust system of care must be established to facilitate this work. As touring artists, we don’t perform just once; we do it again the next day. This is a significant responsibility, ensuring the psychological impact resonates positively with everyone involved.

The piece is born out of a certain urgency. We were on a tight schedule, and the topics are a very direct reflection of our experiences at the moment. We settled on the theme “year without summer,” drawing multiple narratives into a single work, allowing for more than this one Frankenstein story that everybody knows. Other aspects encompass the political landscape of that time and our time.

Before that and preceding Sancta, I had staged Ophelia’s Got Talent, a show with kids, about water creatures, Sirens, and stories of Melusine. Ophelia also raised certain ecological issues, which is why I opted to work with kids.

Pollock: How old were the kids?

Holzinger: Between six and eight. I mention it because to me, Year without Summer is partially a sequel to Ophelia's Got Talent. For "Without Summer," we chose to work with the elderly, looking at the other side of life.

The first step regarding this show was casting for the elder participants. The kids in Ophelia were between six and eight, while for without Summer, we were looking for women between sixty and ninety. I did the casting from Germany, with the only requirement being for people comfortable with nudity. Mostly the performers were uninhibited, coming from East German bathing culture.

Pollock: The immersive ending features a four-meter-high Frankenstein pacing and turning a live camera toward the audience, who are fully exposed as the house lights switch on. From that point, we see ourselves on the monitors, part of a frozen wasteland confronted by questions of complicity. “Who is responsible for creating the monsters of our world?” asks the towering Frankenstein, echoing Shelley’s Arctic confrontation between the creature and his creator, Victor Frankenstein

Speaking of interactive productions, didn’t you once hypnotize the audience?

Holzinger: A Divine Comedy began with a half-hour audience hypnosis session. Ten participants were hypnotized, forgetting their identities and becoming characters in Dante’s journey through hell and heaven. Describing their experiences, they tell the story highlighting the audience’s immediate concepts of heaven and hell, even for those who claim not to believe in such ideas. Half of the seated audience thought the hypnotized individuals on stage were actors, while the other half believed they were genuinely under hypnosis. Additionally, half of those hypnotized reported being completely under, while the others claimed to be play-acting.

Pollock: Can you tell me more about Venice?

Holzinger: Some topics from the other shows will travel to Venice, where we will create an underwater theme park.

Seaworld is our homage to Venice’s codependency on its water, seeking profound equilibrium amid changing water levels in which the performers will be submerged. It also uses technology to regulate the microclimate of their bodily fluids as well as those of the audience.

Pollock: Have you ever been to a SeaWorld?

Holzinger: I have, and mostly they are ghost towns, as it’s not a super-kosher thing anymore.

Pollock: Regarding the choice for you to represent Austria at the Sixty-First Venice Biennale, has anyone questioned your background as a dancer, choreographer, martial artist, and gymnast over fine art?

Holzinger: We are arriving like imposters in this visual arts scene, so we have nothing to lose. Venice is something different. Not only is it a submerged world, but it’s also a cryptic space we can use to broach certain subjects in an immersive experience.

Pollock: You’re a fan of spectacle. What would you do if invited to perform for the Super Bowl Halftime Show?

Holzinger: Definitely on our bucket list. But is it realistic? Not if we stay true to our aesthetics.

Pollock: It would require sponsorship. How would you respond to a fashion brand wanting to collaborate?

Holzinger: No, we wouldn’t do that. It would be a weird compromise. I already did some things I claimed I wouldn’t do. It always depends on what? Why? How would it affect our punk souls?

Pollock: What is the biggest venue you’ve played?

Holzinger: A basketball stadium in Australia, to four thousand people. But I would not say that was great.

Pollock: I am guessing there was a loss of intimacy, which seems essential to your work. I found without Summer a cathartic experience that stayed with me. I am not sure if you are aware, but people didn't want to leave at the end. And you don’t have an end, do you?

Holzinger: I don’t want to sound pretentiously humble—because I’m not‚—but I always struggle with applause. I was glad that in this show, we didn’t create a space for it, as we projected the message “NO END.”

Pollock: And that ice skater was continuing for a long time after the others left. Some of the audience left, and some people milled around, dazed. I think people were still further drawn in. Finally, you incorporate a lot of humor in your work. Would you describe yourself as serious?

Holzinger: Yeah. If I weren’t serious, then nothing would happen. But I don’t take art too seriously.